Campus News Briefs: Wednesday, September 29, 1999

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09/29/99 9:00am

Wharton benefactor Aresty dies at age 92 Aresty, co-owner of the New Jersey-based department store S.P. Dunham and Co., graduated from the Wharton School in 1929. He took an ownership stake in the store in 1941 and stayed in that capacity until the business was sold in the 1970s. Aresty had long involved himself financially with the University, donating money, books and even endowing an institute in his name. "He was a wonderful friend to the University and a loyal alum," University President Judith Rodin said yesterday. In 1987, Aresty and his family endowed the Aresty Institute of Executive Education, a program intended to train corporate executives. The following year, Aresty had an endowed faculty chair in Wharton -- the Julian Aresty Professor of Management and Economics -- named in his honor. Aresty and his family donated his wife's rare cookbook collection to the University in 1991. Penn, in return, named the 500-book collection the Esther B. Aresty Collection of Rare Books on the Culinary Arts. Last year, Aresty's family created a scholarship program enabling minority undergraduate students to attend Wharton. Aresty was born in Macedonia. He had also lived in Rochester, N.Y., and Trenton, N.J., but spent the last 30 years in Princeton. -- Eric Tucker Clothing store opens in Sansom Common Fashion-conscious Penn women have a new place to buy the latest trendy clothing after last week's opening of Ma Jolie in Sansom Common. The owners of the Manayunk-based women's clothing store opened on Friday with the goal of proving the store can be successful on college campuses. "We hope it's a model for other universities," explained Mariann Boston, co-owner and designer for the women's clothing retailer. "We have investors for this location and that was the model -- for a rollout." According to the store's three owners -- sisters Nickie, Mariann and Desie Boston -- the store has been successful in the short time it has been open. "We're very pleased with the traffic thus far," Nickie Boston said, adding that on Friday all nine of the store's fitting rooms were occupied, forcing customers to wait to try on clothing. The store's trendy clothing is upscale and expensive -- $30 for a T-shirt and $60 for a sweater -- but the owners maintain that students will still go there to shop. "[So far] the customers are slanted to younger people," Mariann Boston said. Nickie Boston added that about 60 percent of the customers have been students but that the store also hopes to attract faculty, staff and area residents. The new 3,500-square-foot store currently employs 14 people, half of them Penn students. Ma Jolie is one of the final additions to the Sansom Common retail complex. The Steve Madden shoe store and the 256-room Inn at Penn opened earlier this month. The Ivy Grille is set to open in October. --EGilbert Stockson Student activists to hold sweatshop vigil The Progressive Activist Network and United Students Against Sweatshops will hold a candlelight vigil at 9 p.m. tonight on College Green to protest the use of sweatshop labor. According to PAN member Miriam Joffe-Block, a College senior, the goal of the event is to support eight former sweatshop workers from El Salvador, three of whom recently came to the United States to speak out against unfair labor conditions in sweatshop factories. The workers -- who will return to their country tomorrow -- were fired from their jobs after speaking to a group of students from USAS about poor conditions in the Caribbean Apparel factory where entertainer Kathie Lee Gifford's line of clothing is produced. Both Gifford's corporation and the University are members of the Fair Labor Association -- an organization designed to monitor factory conditions -- and the vigil will serve to show that the system of which Penn is a member allows for "mistreatment of workers," Joffe-Block said. Students at about 25 other colleges and universities -- including Columbia University, Haverford College, the University of Arkansas and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -- are also participating in vigils and other actions this week. In the event of rain, the vigil will be held in the Hillel building at 202 S. 36th Street. -- Marina DeScenza